"I was just lacking pace on a single lap" admits Antonelli
Originally published by F1Technical
Andrea Kimi Antonelli salvaged a front‑row challenge from a weekend that had looked uncharacteristically difficult for the championship leader, qualifying third for the Barcelona‑Catalunya Grand Prix behind teammate George Russell and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.
The Italian has been searching for balance and grip since Friday, and although Mercedes found enough performance to lock out the top three positions, Antonelli was frank about the limitations he felt inside the car.
He described his qualifying session as a battle from start to finish. “Yeah, I mean, to be fair, not really happy,” he admitted. “Just struggling with the feeling of the car, very low grip here, and just been attacking a bit too much corners.
"And yeah, in the last lap I lost basically everything in the last sector, a couple of big slides and tyre just went away from me. So definitely was not the best performance, but long run was good, so looking forward to that for tomorrow and hopefully we will have the same kind of pace.”
Antonelli’s weekend was further complicated by missing FP1, with Mercedes placing reserve driver Frederik Vesti in the car for the opening session. But the Italian downplayed the impact of that lost track time.
“Difficult to say. I think maybe a little bit, but I think overall this weekend I was just lacking pace, to be fair, on a single lap, so I don’t think how much more of a difference it would have made,” he said.
“For sure, FP3 was a very messy session for me, a lot of traffic and not being able also to try the second tyre definitely made things a little bit more complicated, but it’s what it is. Still P3, and now we’ll focus on tomorrow.”
With tyre degradation expected to be one of the defining factors of Sunday’s race, Antonelli believes opportunities will come both at the start and across the strategic battle. “I think both,” he said when asked where his best chances lie.
“It’s a long run into Turn 1. Also, without the use of the wing, the slipstream is going to be much stronger, so important to get a good start and then try to get away cleanly into Turn 1.
"And then from that point on, it’s going to be trying to play the long game. Tyres are very fragile here and we might see a lot of stops during the race because, yeah, they don’t last very long.”